Album Review

Having made their LP debut with half an album's worth of repackaged oldies, the Sweet then followed through with an entire disc of the things, drawing from both their own recent back catalog and that of songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, to create a record of almost unholy pop pleasure. For the Sweet were not the only arrow in the Chinn and Chapman quiver. They were scoring hits, too, with New World, with their "Tom Tom Turnaround" ranking among the most mawkishly compulsive songs in the duo's entire catalog. Passing it on to the Sweet to cover for their own LP didn't simply make sense from a commercial point of view. It was also the first step toward establishing Chinnichap as a songwriting brand name that would ultimately become as self-sufficient as any Motown, Brill, or Kasenetz-Katz coupling. Two recent Sweet singles, "Funny Funny" and "Co Co," and three B-sides, "Jeanie," "Spotlight," and "Done Me Wrong Alright," do weight this supremely punningly titled set down a little — add "Tom Tom Turnaround" and the average fan would probably have owned a full half of the record before even picking it up. It should also be acknowledged that the remainder of the record was in no way comparable with the quality of those other songs. A lackluster rendering of "Daydream" and the unappetizing American soft rock stylisms of "Santa Monica Sunshine," "Reflections," "Honeysuckle Love," and "Sunny Sleeps Late" are all little more than bland filler. However, "Chop Chop" absolutely remedies the rest of the album's failings. Another Chinn and Chapman classic, it was originally recorded by singing DJ Tony Blackburn, with members of the Sweet themselves on backing vocals. It failed to take off, and the Sweet add little more to it than Blackburn had already tried to. But, in the company of those other hits, its original failure seems incredible — as incredible, in fact, as the Sweet's own success.

Biography

Formed: 1968 in London, England

Genre: Rock

Years Active: '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s

In some ways, the Sweet epitomized all the tacky hubris and garish silliness of the early '70s. Fusing bubblegum melodies with crunching, fuzzy guitars, the band looked a heavy metal band, but were as tame as any pop group. It was a dichotomy that served them well, as they racked up a number of hits in both the U.K. and the U.S. Most of those hits were written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, a pair of British songwriters that had a way with silly, simple, and catchy hooks. Chinn/Chapman and Sweet...